World Food Day honors the date of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to increase awareness of world hunger and poverty and inspire solutions for world change. World Food Day, celebrated this year on October 16, serves as a reminder that food insecurity and malnourishment remain common and are set to intensify as a result of a variety of ongoing risks such as climate change, inflation, geopolitical conflict, and others. The theme for World Food Day 2022 is 'Safe food today for a healthy tomorrow' which stresses that production and consumption of safe food have “immediate and long-term benefits for people, the planet, and the economy.” [1]
Food security has emerged as a global problem for both government and non-government organizations. Globally, there are often gaps in meeting food needs. On the one hand, we find people who die of hunger due to limited access to food, but on the other hand, we find people who have too much food. A key indicator of the seriousness of food problems is that food issues are included in the United Nations' global agenda (Sustainable Development Goal 2: End
Hunger). [2]
According to FAO, more than enough food is produced to feed every last one of us. Yet up to 828 million people remain chronically undernourished, amid signs of diminishing momentum toward reaching Zero Hunger. [3] Our inability to feed the entirety of the world’s population is mostly due to food waste. The UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021 revealed that around 931 million tons of food waste were generated in 2019, 61 percent of which came from households, 26 percent from food service, and 13 percent from retail. Globally, 30–40% of all food is wasted. A quarter of overall food waste is enough to feed the suffering people. The total amount of food wasted is enough to feed 3 million people. The World Economic Forum estimates that 60% more food will be needed to feed the world by 2050, but the world will not be able to produce the required quantity of food. As a result, food insecurity will cause hunger, unemployment, an increase in food prices, violent conflict, an increase in health-related costs, and so on.
Global efforts to reduce food waste can stabilize the food supply and solve nearly all food- related issues. Food security can be attained by 2030 if every person, family, group, organization, corporation, institution, and government contribute.
An individual can do the following things to contribute to end hunger.
Buying locally grown products.
Reducing Food waste.
Improving food storage system.
Urban farming.
Reference:
1. "World Food Day 2022," Twinkl, 2022.
2. Y. M. Mediatrix and P. S. Prasetyo, "Policy Innovation to Support City Food Security,"
Knowledge E, pp. 231-246, 2022.
3. "Sustainable Development Goals," Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation.”
